


Be Still, My Heart

by orphan_account



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Child Narrator, Ficlet, Gen, Illnesses, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 20:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19980244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: IF YOU ARE SEEING THIS ON AN APP, THIS IS STOLEN. I HAVE NOT GIVEN CONSENT FOR IT TO BE USED ANYWHERE OTHER THAN MY AO3, TUMBLR, TOYHOU.SE AND FLIGHT RISING ACCOUNTS.Life is a fleeting thing indeed, and sometimes knowing that something is wrong is worse than a surprise.This fic may be better read aloud, or imagined as being read in your headcanon voice for Kyouko.





	1. Be Still, My Heart

I’ve never seen you this ill before. You’re pale—paler than even Murasa, and she’s already dead. When you close your eyes, it’s like you’ve gone somewhere else where nobody can reach you. Not even Miss Yagokoro is sure what’s wrong with you. She looks at your eyes and listens to your heart and writes things down while I sit and play quietly like you told me to. Sometimes, Miss Yagokoro says big words that I don’t understand, like ‘cardiac arrhythmia’ and 'hyporeflexia'. You nod and respond as if it makes sense, but I’m not sure that you get it any more than I do.  


◊◊◊  
You tell me not to worry, but at night, when I get up late for a drink of water, I can hear you talking to the others. You say the same words Miss Yagokoro said, and you sound worried as if there's something wrong. When I ask you about it in the morning, you just smile and tell me that it's going to be alright. I'm not so sure about that, but it makes you happy when I agree, so I do.  


◊◊◊  
When you fall into the longest and strongest of your trances yet, we rush you to the hospital. You’re unresponsive, staring off into space. I wonder what you’re thinking — if you know what’s happening or if you’re even thinking at all. Miss Yagokoro says that there’s nothing she can do, and that the best course of action is to just make you comfortable and wait.  
Time goes by, and by morning, your lips are blue, your hands are cold, and you are gone.


	2. Extra- About Trance Disease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief explanation of the disease affecting Byakuren in this fic. The end note has some of my thought process while coming up with the disease!

##### About Trance Disease 

Trance disease (also called trancing or glass-eye disease) is an illness spread through introduction of bodily fluids into the bloodstream, reproductive system or digestive system. Usually transmitted through bites by affected youkai, it is also sometimes spread through indirect contact, eating contaminated food, or a myriad of other ways.

The disease causes the affected individual to go into what has been dubbed a ‘trance’, in which they are slow to react and their heart rate drops. Trances last longer, drop the victim’s heart rate further, and are harder to break as the disease progresses. Frequently, wild youkai will not die from the disease itself, but rather from predators seeing them as an easy meal. However, youkai that are living in a protected environment are highly likely to die from lack of adequate blood flow to vital organs or injuries from sudden fainting. 

Due to trance disease cropping up fairly recently, there’s no known treatment and no vaccine for it. However, undead youkai such as jiang-shi, ghosts, and vampires are unaffected, due to not having a functioning biological heart in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to the fact that I described the symptoms of trance disease in Byakuren without having a specific illness in mind, there were no real-life equivalents that matched the description. Thus, trance disease was born. I chose to have it be transmitted through bites and the like, because it made sense to me for Byakuren to have been bitten or scratched by a scared youkai that she was trying to help, or something along those lines. I also based it somewhat on rabies and other zoonotic diseases, or diseases that can be spread from an animal to a human. This was definitely a nice bit of sciencey stuff in an otherwise bleak and sad fic!


End file.
